Christian Identity, Jews, and Israel in 17th-Century England

Achsah A. Guibbory

Bridges the fields of history, religious studies, and literary criticism in examining the formation of early modern Christian identities

Based on extensive archival research

Significant attention paid to Milton's writings, and a broad range of other writers

Christian Identity, Jews, and Israel in 17th-Century England

Achsah A. Guibbory

Description

Christian Identity, Jews, and Israel in 17th-Century England is a cultural history of seventeenth-century England. It assesses the complexity and fluidity of Christian identity from the reign of Elizabeth I and the early Stuart kings through the English Revolution, and into the Restoration, when the English Church and monarchy were restored. Throughout this tumultuous period, which included debate about readmission of the Jews, England was preoccupied with Jews and Israel. As the Reformation sharpened national identity and prompted reconsideration of the relation of Christianity to Judaism, English people showed intense interest in Jewish history and Judaism and appropriated biblical Israel's history, looking to the narratives in the Hebrew Bible, even as reformed
Christianity was thought to be purged of Jewish elements. There was an unstable, shifting mix of identification and opposition, affinity and distance, in English attitudes towards Jews - a mix that held positive possibilities for Jewish/Christian relations as well as negative. Grounded in archival research, this book analyzes writings ranging from those of Foxe and Hooker to Milton and Dryden, from sermons to lyrics, from church polemic to proposals for legal and economic reform. Literary texts discussed include Herrick's Hesperides, Vaughan's Silex Scintillans, Bunyan's Grace Abounding, Milton's major prose and poems, and Dryden's Annus Mirabilis and Absalom and Achitophel. Attention is also paid to publications associated with James I, Charles I, and Cromwell, and writings by and about
such figures as William Prynne, Gerrard Winstanley, Margaret Fell, George Fox, Menasseh Ben Israel, and self-proclaimed prophets such as John Rogers, Abiezzer Coppe, and Anna Trapnel.

Christian Identity, Jews, and Israel in 17th-Century England

Achsah A. Guibbory

Table of Contents

Preface Table of Contents List of Illustrations Abbreviations and note to the Reader Introduction 1. Nation, Monarch, and Israel2. The English Church, Jewish Worship, and the Temple3. Revolution and Reformation: Parliament 'fast' sermons, the elect nation, and Biblical Israel4. Anglicans and Royalists at War and in Exile5. Political Alternatives and Israelite Foundations6. The Jewish Aspect of Radical Religion: millenarians and prophets7. Revisiting the Question of Jewish Readmission8. The Restoration: England and Israel, Milton and DrydenEpilogue

Christian Identity, Jews, and Israel in 17th-Century England

Achsah A. Guibbory

Author Information

Achsah Guibbory is Ann Whitney Olin Professor of English at Barnard College, Columbia University. Before coming to Barnard in 2004, she was Professor of English at the University of Illinois, where she was also affiliated with the Program in Religious Studies. Author of numerous articles and essays on seventeenth-century culture and literature, especially on Donne and Milton, her most recent books are Ceremony and Community from Herbert to Milton (CUP, 1998) and her edited Cambridge Companion to John Donne (CUP, 2006). Her research for Christian Identity, Jews, and Israel in Seventeenth-Century England was supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Christian Identity, Jews, and Israel in 17th-Century England

Achsah A. Guibbory

Reviews and Awards

"An important book that significantly advances our understanding of Judaism's role in the formation of early modern Christianity. It breaks new ground in several areas and should be regarded as indispensible for anyone seeking to understand seventeenth-century English culture." --Modern Philology

"[A] large and important book ... It consistently stimulates thought. It should be essential reading for anyone interested in seventeenth century England, literature and history, the history of religion, and interfaith relations.--Jason P. Rosenblatt, Religion and Literature

"Guibbory's work stands as a notable achievement."--Andre A. Gazal, Sixteenth Century Journal

"[A] fine book, a major contribution to the understanding of Early Modern literature, religion, and history, showing many unexpected, revelatory links between works of different kinds."--Warren Chernaik, The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms

"Guibbory's study offers a rich, original, and well-researched account of the Hebrew Bible and the history of the biblical Jews as they were interpreted in seventeenth-century England ... This outstanding study deserves to be widely read by scholars and students of early modern English history, religion, and literature."--David Loewenstein, English Historical Review

"[An] important book ... Should be essential reading for anyone interested in seventeenth-century England, literature and history, the history of religion, and interfaith relations."-- Religion & Literature

"Achsah Guibbory ... brings to the field refreshing insight ... a forceful study that demonstrates that writing English history without the Jews deprives the subject of an important aspect that would have been instantly recognized by people who lived there then."--David S. Katz, Journal of British Studies

"Christian Identity is remarkable for its determination not to subscribe to any one, simple grand narrative - the map it offers is complex ... what distinguishes this outstanding book and the best kind of history is its judicious fullness and the self-awareness that enables the author not to occlude the alterity of the past even as it denies her the ideal she longs for."--Paul Stevens, University of Toronto Quarterly

"Well researched, thoroughly accessible and carefully structured, Christian Identity presents an important argument about some of the ways that early modern Christians constructed their identity in relation to Israel and the Hebrew Bible."--N.C. Aldred, Notes and Queries

"This stimulating book adds a distinctly literary perspective to the growing body of scholarship... These high notes are well prepared by the pleasingly eclectic variety of literary resources upon which Guibbory draws. The book elegantly shows how apologists and critics of the English Church throughout the turbulent seventeenth century shaped its future identity through encounter with the Jewish past."--Sharon Achinstein, Renaissance Quarterly

"Guibbory deftly bridges the traditional academic disciplines of literary criticism, history, and religious studies to substantiate some very specific claims about the formation of early modern Christian identities. She suceeds in this endeavor both because of her astute critical judgments about how to weigh the textual evidence and also because of her years of painstaking archival reseach...This is an important book both because of its explicit recognition of the complexity and fluidity of Christian identity and also because of what it reveals about the specific ways the Reformation precipitated a renegotiation of the relations between Christianity and Judaism in the West."--William E. Engel, Seventeenth Century News

"The great achievement of Christian Identity is to show just how ubiquitous discussion of Judaism was in this period, it reveals that all - Anglicans, Puritans, monarchists, republicans - drew deeply on the Old Testament in their discussions of everything from politics to religion to social life. The book also shows the deep ambivalence at the heart of much of this: many who were willing to celebrate the ancient Jews were equally happy to dismiss their modern descendants with disgust."--The Revd Dr William Whyte, Church Times

"This is a rich, detailed picture of the Jewish aspects of British culture"--C.S.Vilmar, CHOICE

"In Christian Identity ... Achsah Guibbory provides a comprehensive account of early modern English attitudes toward biblical and postbiblical Jews. The complexity of Guibbory's analysis exposes the reductiveness of many prior statements about Christian-Jewish relations in the period. ... This is a richly detailed book that deserves to be read in its entirety."--Studies in English Literature